


20 Questions

by liadan14



Series: just can't face myself alone again [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Dustin answers questions, F/M, Growing Up, High School, M/M, Multi, Puberty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 11:03:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12580340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liadan14/pseuds/liadan14
Summary: A few questions Eleven asked before she turned eighteen, and one she didn't.Alternatively: Pretending not to care was never going to be great advice, but giving it to a boy who will answer a question about New Year's Eve with an explanation of the Catholic Church is terrible.





	20 Questions

**Author's Note:**

> Underage tag b/c almost all characters involved are still underage. Also, there is some vague mention of depression-like symptoms and all-around not dealing very well with trauma. There's a pairing at the end that's hinted at that might squick people out though and if you want to know check the notes at the end. I just didn't want to put it in the tags because it kind of spoils the fic.

Eleven learns quickly that not all questions are the same. There are some questions (“What are grits?” “What’s swing music?”) that Hopper can answer quickly, with a demonstration. He likes those questions, because they reach a satisfying end. 

Words are also easy questions, but sometimes they’re hard to explain, because you have to use other words. “What is a hedgehog?” is a lot easier for Hopper to answer than “What is a law?”. For her first Christmas with him, he gives her a dictionary. It’s good, it means less questions, but it still can’t answer all of them.

There are a lot of questions Hopper can’t answer, though. “Why does the year end in December?” for instance. He says, “Because it starts in January.” She asks, “But why?” and he answers “Because it just does, kid.”

It’s not exactly satisfying.

So El starts asking other people. 

At first, she thinks she can ask Mike, but somehow she finds herself unable to voice her list of (she’s sure) weird questions. Questions that make her a freak. There are things she can tell him, like that she doesn’t know how to dance, or that she doesn’t know what “first base” means when she hears Lucas and Mike talking about it. But there are other things she doesn’t quite want to voice, like “Why does the year end in December?” or “Why does my chest feel weird when you’re in the room?”.

It’s not that she thinks Mike will make fun of her, it’s more that she sees Max, and how Max and Lucas laugh together, or talk quietly with their heads bent together, and aren’t always being stopped in their tracks by Max asking questions about things everyone else already knows. Eleven wants to be that, at ease with Mike and not always confused. She wants Mike to look at her like he does now, like he thinks she’s beautiful, and not like Hopper does, like she’s little, or weird.

As it turns out, Dustin is her best resource. She asks him, “Why does the year end in December?” as a test and he gets a weird look, says, “You know, I don’t know, but let me get back to you.” She thinks that just means he can’t help her, but the next day, he shows up with a stack of books and starts explaining.

Even when she interrupts his explanation about Pope Gregory and the calendar to ask, “What’s a pope?” he takes a deep breath and launches into another twenty-minute explanation.

Listening to Dustin explain things is easy, too, because he’s so interested in everything. When she asks, tentatively, shyly even (for her), why her chest feels weird around Mike, he gets quiet. She thinks she finally found something he won’t answer, and then he says, “You know what, that’s a really good question.”

They end up poring over Steve’s biology textbook together, trying to understand what hormones even are, while Steve stares at them with poorly disguised humor.

“You guys are so lame,” he says.

“Joke’s on you,” Dustin tells him, “you’re hanging out with us.”

“What can I say,” Steve shrugs. “I guess I’m lame now, too.”

The question of hormones finally somewhat solved, Eleven asks, “Why are you guys always sad?”

It sucks all the air right out of the room.

Finally, Dustin says gently, “You know how you were mad when you thought Mike and Max…?”

Eleven nods, still upset at the memory. Now more because it was stupid of her and Max likes Lucas, and she wasted weeks not talking to Max until she understood that. It turns out Max is nice, and wants to be friends with her, and El is still sorry about it all.

“Well, Steve used to be with Nancy. And now Nancy’s with Jonathan.”

Steve swallows thickly and looks away from the two of them. El follows his gaze out the window and wonders what that is like. She imagines if Mike and Max had liked each other, and her stomach coils into knots. “That’s bad,” she says. “I. I’m sorry?”

“Thanks, kid,” Steve says, looking back at her. “That’s nice of you.”

It’s only later that Eleven realizes Dustin didn’t answer for himself and that Steve let him. 

She asks Steve about it, once, and he shrugs and says something about Max, but Eleven is pretty sure that isn't it, because Dustin likes Max, and he doesn't look at Lucas like he wants to make him fall off a skateboard.

-

Eleven starts her period when she is just fourteen, and she hates it. She runs to Hopper in a panic, thinking she’s sick, and he calls Joyce and all but runs out of the house as soon as Joyce is there. 

Joyce is kind, and helpful. She always is. She brings pads and tampons, and explains that this will happen to Eleven once a month until she’s fifty, and Eleven cries. 

“Oh hey, it’s okay, sweetie,” Joyce says. “It’s nothing to be upset or ashamed about, it’s totally natural.”

“Then why did Hop run away?”

Joyce sighs. “Well,” she says. “I mean. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but people don’t really talk about it.”

“Why?”

“It’s embarrassing, I think? Especially for men.”

“That’s dumb.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So I shouldn’t be embarrassed, but I shouldn’t talk about it.”

Joyce runs a hand through her hair. “I wish I had better answers for you.”

It’s the first time Eleven has heard that. She remembers it for a long time.

-

When Eleven is just sixteen, Mike leaves the room a lot. They’ll be reading together, or watching TV, or playing a game, or just kissing, and Mike will suddenly stutter something and leave the room.

Eleven asks Dustin.

Dustin chokes, and then laughs, and then chokes some more.

Dustin is almost seventeen, and he’s on the wrestling team. He’s grown into his face some (Eleven didn’t understand what that meant, grown into his face, until Dustin got back from summer vacation at his Dad’s this year). Girls like him, and he goes on dates almost every weekend, but he’s still sad and he still never talks about it.

“Okay, El,” Dustin says. “Um. You and Max went shopping a couple weeks ago, right?”

El nods. For about a year, Hopper has been giving her what he calls “allowance”, and mostly, she’s spent it on snacks and arcade games. She’d grown just a little taller this summer, though, and her pants were a bit too short, and she was tired of wearing Hopper’s old shirts. So Max had taken her to the mall.

Max doesn’t dress like other girls Eleven sees at school (sees, but doesn’t talk to, there are so many of them and they're always together). She doesn’t wear skirts and wool tights, or tight sweaters, or curl her hair. But she knows about those things. When El asked, tentatively, “You don’t like skirts. Is it okay if I…?”

Max had grabbed her hand, unusual for her. “Oh no, El, don’t worry about that. I like pants, and I like sweatshirts, but mostly because my mom wants me in other stuff. There’s nothing wrong with liking whatever you like.”

So El had started wearing skirts, and V-neck sweaters like the ones she used to see Nancy in sometimes.

And Mike had started leaving the room.

Dustin calls Max over, and they sit down together with El in Dustin’s living room. 

They sit in awkward silence for a moment, and then Max asks, “Do you know what sex is?”

“It’s when a boy puts his penis in a girl’s vagina,” El says. Dustin sputters.

Max nods, decisively. “Good.”

“Mrs. Byers explained it.”

Dustin nods. “Okay. Um. Look, there’s no good way to say this, but Mike probably wants to have sex with you.”

“Oh.” El processes this. Slowly.

“Not like…he wouldn’t push you to or anything, but that’s probably why he’s being so weird. Because you’re wearing different clothes that show off different parts of your body and he doesn’t want to push you.”

“But why does he leave?”

Max sighs. “You know penises get hard, when boys are interested? Probably that.”

El considers. “Does that happen to Lucas?”

Max, being built that way, blushes all over. “Um.”

Dustin looks back and forth between them. “How about I just go…make a sandwich or something?”

“Good call,” Max says. 

Max then explains, haltingly, blushing, about blowjobs and handjobs and French kissing, and saying no and meaning no. Eleven hangs on her every word.

“Is this another thing I’m supposed to not talk about but also not be embarrassed about?” El asks.

“Pretty much,” Max tells her. “But talk to Mike about it. It helps, I promise.”

Dustin comes back in with a sandwich, and says, "Did you tell her about condoms?"

"Shit, no," Max says, and they launch into another explanation, this time together.

So El does talk to Mike, and they widen their kissing repertoire a little, and after a few weeks, try out some other things. Mike has ideas Max didn’t know about, things he wants to do to her, and El shares these with Max in turn. 

It makes her feel good, like a real girl, to know things and share them, even though she’s still struggling to catch up with Algebra.

-

El has fewer questions now, but she doesn’t talk to Dustin less. She would miss him, she realizes. She does miss him, and Will. They don’t play D&D on the weekends now. Instead, they go on double dates with girls like Stacey and Cindy and Anna and Lisa and it’s fine, it is, but they never seem to be like dates El goes on with Mike. Instead, the next Monday, people will compliment Dustin on his kegstand, or ask Will if he “sealed the deal”.

“We can’t all be star-crossed lovers,” Dustin jokes when she asks him about it. 

Will, Eleven knows, is scared to let someone in far enough to see that he’s still haunted. He’s scared of being a burden on his mom again. He’s scared to be different again. But they all know, secretly, that it’s not a Cindy or Stacey he’s kissing behind the bleachers during football games, it’s a Kevin. They’re just waiting for him to be ready to talk about it.

Once, Lucas accuses Dustin of enabling Will, of encouraging him to hide.

Dustin, calmly, says “Fuck you,” ambles out of the cafeteria and spends the next two weeks hanging out solely with the wrestling team.

During these two weeks, Mike sneaks into Eleven’s room every other night and Hopper is kind enough to pretend he doesn’t notice (after having a long talk with El about condoms, which she had already received).

It takes El the entire two weeks to realize that “People don’t stay friends when they grow up, people grow apart. And anyway, Dustin has wrestling, and Lucas and I have track, and Will has, Will has stuff too and it’s not like we’re all still twelve” means “I miss Dustin and I’m scared of losing my friends.

When she does figure it out, she goes straight to Dustin.

“Mike misses you,” she says.

“And he sent you to tell me.” He’s picking at the cafeteria meatloaf. She hears just a hint of his old lisp.

“No. Mike’s not great at talking.”

“Yeah, well.” Dustin doesn’t finish the sentence, but El assumes it goes “neither are you.”

“What’s going on?” She asks. “I’m sorry I always ask you, but I’m confused. Everything’s different and I don’t know if it’s about sex, or about girls being different than boys, or about stuff I’m not supposed to talk about, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

And because Dustin is probably the best friend El will ever have, he smiles at her, even though she knows he’s so sad he aches. “El, it’s not your fault, and you’re not gonna lose any of us.”

“Not good enough,” she says. “Things have been weird for ages.”

Weird since before she and Mike started having sex. Weird since before El started wearing skirts. Weird since before Max and Lucas sometimes decided to stay in on weekends. Weird since Dustin was always sad and Will was always hiding.

“Things are always going to be weird, it’s Hawkins,” Dustin says. “Look, it’s not easy watching you guys.”

El says nothing, just waits.

“Look, we’re all kind of stuck with each other, right? You and me and Mike and Lucas and Will and Max. And, and Steve, and Nancy and Jonathan. Because we all saw the same shit and lived through stuff no one should. That’s never going to go away. But the way I see it, some of us got paired off and some of us didn’t. And you guys, and I guess the others, they share this...incredible bond and I won’t ever have that with anyone, because no one’s gonna believe me, and even if they did, they weren’t there.”

Dustin draws breath, and El remembers him, little, with his hair everywhere instead of kind of slicked back and puffed up and trendy, explaining the Gregorian Calendar to her because no one else would. 

"Is this about Max?" She asks, "And Lucas?"

"No. God no," Dustin says. "When I was thirteen, maybe, but, no. I love her, but as a friend. It's about being alone. And Will, I mean, it’s so much worse for Will, he lived a nightmare and no one will ever understand, so what if he wants to pretend something for a while? So what if he’s not ready for other kids to call him faggot when they just stopped calling him zombie boy? We’re still gonna be here when he’s ready. At least, you will.”

“Dustin,” El says. “You will be too.”

“I…” Dustin sighs. “I’ll try.”

“Is this about you being sad?”

“I’m not…” Dustin sighs. “It’s really hard, sometimes. To get out of bed. To not care about shit. Maybe I should just stop hanging out with you guys. I just bring you down.”

El looks at him, what Dustin always called her incoming-crazy look. “You’re terrible at not caring about shit.”

Dustin shrugs. “Yeah, but as long as you don’t look like you care, people like you.”

El stares at him. “That’s the worst advice you’ve ever given me.”

-

Jonathan and Nancy come home from their junior year of college smiling, with a hundred photos of New York and plans for the future. 

Steve Harrington comes home from his senior year of college with a hard-earned bachelor’s degree in economics and about one person in Hawkins he actually wants to see.

These things are not related.

Mike groans and complains about Nancy being in the house, but he’s actually really happy to see her, El can tell. Will doesn’t even pretend to be annoyed, he’s missed Jonathan.

Dustin shrugs. “Nancy and I have peaked,” he says loftily, referring to the one time they danced in Middle School.

“Har, har,” Mike says, grossed out as always by the reminder. 

Will and Dustin share a look, because Mike didn’t see Dustin crying on the bleachers, didn’t trace the direct line from Nancy’s kindness that night and Steve’s guidance many other nights to Dustin not being abjectly miserable throughout High School.

Dustin has never looked like he cared about anything less.

Eleven realizes this is a dead giveaway, and she stealthily follows him after school.

Steve is waiting in front of Dustin’s house.

For a moment, the huge, incandescent smile he tries so hard to suppress to look “less like a dork” threatens to break free, and then he gets it under control, says, “Hey, I didn’t think you’d come visit me.”

“Eh,” Steve says, the picture of nonchalance, “I was in the area.”

Dustin looks both happier than Eleven has seen him in months, and sadder than she has seen him in years.

She decides to never ask him if he’s in love with Steve.

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh. Yeah. If anyone wants that fic where Steve and adult (like, post-college) Dustin sort their shit out and also probably screw, I would probably write that. And then feel horrible about myself.
> 
> This fic, btw, stems mostly from my horrified thought throughout S2, which was: "what the fuck did Hopper do when Eleven got her period, and also like should she be kissing boys when she maybe doesn't even know a whole lot about the differences between girls and boys?". And then it kind of turned into Dustin being sad and Steve giving terrible advice.


End file.
